Like most people we looked at the Weekend Box Office Report for films this past weekend.

We were very excited to see 300 only drop to second place, and to still come close to beating the number 1 film. You’ll recall a few weeks ago we were discussing if 300 does well it is guaranteed that we will see even more non-super hero comic book film adaptations. Given the success of Frank Miller projects, Sin City and 300, we were hoping to see Dark Knight Returns someday.

Then we were on The Beat reading stuff, as we normally are, when Heidi reminded us about the true implications that this weekends box office report had. We had forgotten that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were a comic book. Meaning that for the first time in living memory TWO comic book movies are on top of the charts, at spots 1 and 2.

Now we mean no disrespect to the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when we say that we had forgotten it was a comic book. We actually quite like the book. But we realize that our forgetfulness may be pandemic in children born after 1980.

To children born after 1980 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a kickass cartoon and toyline. And though we know it originally started as a comic, it’s hard to remember this sometimes when we didn’t learn it until we were in our teens and weren’t playing with TMNT figures anymore. Or playing the old TMNT games on the NES, which were some damn fine games, and recently released on Xbox Live Arcade. (but we digress).

Yes, TMNT was originally a comic book written and drawn by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, it was published by Mirage Comics. For some reason the comic was freakishly successful, it was licensed as a TV show and toy line and that my friends is how most children today know the Turtles even if they don’t know who Eastman and Laird are. Maybe it was successful because it’s just really fun to say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles out loud as the Every Day is Like Wednesday Blog suggests in their review of the film.

Now here is the real kicker, Eastman and Laird wrote Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a short quick parody of works by Frank Miller.

 

Clearly Leonardo and Donatello are shocked by this knowledge! “A Daredevil, Frank Miller connection! Eghad! That is not Cowabunga dude!”

Yes, the very same Frank Miller we discussed earlier of Sin City and 300 fame.

How exactly were the Turtles a parody of Frank Miller’s work you say? This is the part that is very important as it’s fascinating how much more popular the parody is than the original concept.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle are a parody of Daredevil. You see Frank Miller was in the middle of a very famous run on Daredevil in the early 80’s when TMNT was first published.

Here are the references, there may be more, but we aren’t as familiar with TMNT as we wish we were as we don’t have the TPB.

A) Daredevil received his powers through nuclear waste falling off a truck, hitting him in the face.

B) The Turtles receive their powers when the container of waste falls off a truck, hits a boy in the head, but does not explode, but instead rolls down in the sewer.

A) Daredevil often fights a group of Ninja’s called The Hand.

B) The Turtles fight a group of Ninja’s aptly called The Foot.

A) Daredevil learned a lot of his moves from a sensi called Stick.

B) The Turtles learn their moves from their sentient rat pal who was also hit with the same radioactive waste whose name is Splinter.

A) The Punisher is from the same are of NYC as Daredevil and they encounter each other often.

B) Casey Jones patrols the street of NYC dispensing vigiliate justice in a manner not dissimilar to the Punisher. Maybe the hockey mask is an allusion to the big skull on the Punisher’s chest.

There may be other parallels. We’re not sure how April O’Neil fits into Marvel land, or how Shredder does (Did Daredevil fight Silver Samurai ever?)

But nonetheless folks there you have. The Turtles are way more popular than Daredevil. The Turtles were a parody of Frank Millers run on Daredevil.

With that in mind, Frank Miller owns the weekend box office in a round about way. If the Turtle are a parody of Daredevil and 300 is all Frank Miller, and TMNT is #1 at the box office, and 300 is #2 then Frank Miller owns Hollywood!

Can a direct shot for shot version of Dark Knight Returns be far behind? Go Frank Miller go!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Games, Comics, Media and Motion Pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.